Rental scams target vacant houses in Central Florida

Neighbors in the northwest Orange County community of Rose Point noticed something unusual going on at the vacant, foreclosed house on Rywood Drive: A Rooms To Go truck was unloading furniture there.

Community coordinator Rebekah Dulberg knew the house was under contract but could not understand why someone would be moving in before the sale had closed. Delving into the matter with law enforcement, other homeowners and a real-estate broker, Dulberg uncovered a rental scam at that house and another one nearby.

"Anyone who has a vacant house could be victimized," Dulberg said.

No one knows how pervasive this kind of rental hoax has become in a state beleaguered by a shadow inventory of foreclosed, vacant houses. But utilities report an increase in sham accounts for getting a home's water turned on, and law enforcement has made numerous arrests in other parts of the state.

There are different variations of the scam, but here's basically how it works: Someone sees a vacant-looking house listed for sale. Using the listing information, he or she locates it and accesses it using the lockbox, a locksmith or some other means. Then the locks are changed, and it is advertised as a rental. When a prospective tenant comes to see the property, the person posing as the leasing agent or landlord collects what can amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars in cash or money orders for a deposit and first month's rent.

Dulberg alerted the two homes' owners and law enforcement to the recent scams, and the victim-tenants have since left the properties. One of the would-be renters paid $1,800 for a deposit and first-month rent on a three-bedroom home. The person who represented herself as the property's leasing agent told the woman that appliances had been ordered for the house and would be delivered.

One factor that has made it easier for con artists to pass off these rental houses as their own is that they are able to get the utilities turned on, Dulberg said.

Among examples of the crime in this part of the state: A Polk County man was charged with an organized scheme to defraud using manufactured leases. Charges were filed against a 37-year-old Pasco County man who was operating a foreclosure-prevention business. And a Hillsborough County man recently pleaded guilty to organized fraud, theft and burglary for breaking into houses and moving tenants into them.

Jamie Ampel, a broker with Assist2Sell of Apopka, had one of the vacant houses in Rose Point listed as a short sale and was scheduled to close on it in 45 days. Meanwhile, the owner had relocated to Chattanooga, Tenn.

"I have heard about it from other Realtors and, frankly, I never thought it would happen to a house I was involved with," Ampel said. "Some banks are taking five years to foreclose on homes. It seems like this problem has been going on a lot."

Ampel said she reviewed the "bogus" lease signed by the tenant. The people who advertised the house must have gotten the owners' names through public records and forged one of their signatures on the document, Ampel said. She added that the document looked more like a generic one downloaded from the Internet rather than one generated by Florida Realtors or The Florida Bar.

Renters could avoid signing a fraudulent and worthless lease by taking a few precautions, she said: They could contact a real-estate agent to check the address and see whether the property is under contract to be sold. They should avoid paying cash or providing money orders. And they should not feel pressed to close on a lease the first time they see the house.

A woman who tried to move into one of the houses on Rywood said she had learned of the supposed rental from a sign placed at an intersection along Hiawassee Road.

"I had changed my mind about renting it, and they kept pressuring me," said the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she fears being targeted by other scammers. "I had doubts about the house and the people. I said, 'I'm going to think about it.' And they said, 'Well, I've got somebody else looking at it.' ''

Dennis Burgess, a leasing consultant for Legends Realty of Lake Mary, said he has a rental property in the Rose Point community and is familiar with the kind of rental scams affecting homes there. He recalled that several years ago, when he rented a Casselberry home to a family, other people kept driving by and stopping to ask the new tenants about what they thought was a new rental listing but was really a fraudulent rental offering by someone unrelated to the property.

"In the past few years, they have gotten smarter," he said of the scammers. "They go to the appraiser's website and then get the name of the homeowner and use that in case the renter checks."

The illegal operators have also gotten more brazen, he added.

"They're breaking into them. They're just flat-out breaking into them on Rywood," said Burgess, who has been talking to community residents about paying close attention to any activity around vacant homes. "Neighborhood Watches are getting such a bad rap, but the Neighborhood Watch folks do serve a purpose."